Osborne hoping to swing election with final budget

London

BRITAIN's finance minister George Osborne has a chance to bolster the re-election prospects of Prime Minister David Cameron next week when he announces his last budget before a knife-edge election.

The election on May 7 is shaping up to be the most unpredictable in decades, with anti-establishment parties gaining support and big differences between the Conservatives and the main opposition Labour Party on how to run the world's sixth-biggest economy and its membership of the European Union.

With the main political parties neck-and-neck in opinion polls, Mr Osborne wants to use his high-profile statement on tax and spending on March 18 to try to make Britons feel that they are benefiting from the economy's turnaround.…